Finding Flow on the Dance Floor, Part 2: Social Dance as Game
“Flow is a harmonious experience where mind and body are working together effortlessly, leaving the person feeling that something special has just occurred…This is because flow lifts experience from the ordinary to the optimal, and it is in those moments that we feel truly alive and in tune with what we are doing.”
- Susan A. Jackson and Mihaly Csikzentmihalyi
It has been called flow, peak experience, optimal experience, the zone, and deep play. The concept has been widely experienced and researched, and yet it remains elusive. Generally understood to be a rare, short-lived, and unexpected occurrence, it can’t be controlled, summoned, or grasped. However, the pure joy and freedom it brings prevents us from just dismissing it altogether. We continue to seek these moments because they hint at something greater and validate the time and effort we spend in their pursuit.
For the social dancer, flow provides the unrivaled feeling of deep connection with his or her body, the music, and another human being. Every social dance – from salsa and Argentine tango to the ballroom dances and west coast swing – requires physicality, musicality, communication, problem-solving, and creativity. These exhilarating challenges open up opportunities to experience flow. Although we can’t guarantee its occurrence, we can approach the dance in a way that will maximize our receptivity and, therefore, our likelihood of achieving that feeling of transcendence.
Because dance has so many layers or levels of meaning and understanding, it helps to approach flow in social dance from several different angles. Though there could never be an exhaustive or comprehensive list of approaches to the dance, my research of flow and the social dance experience have revealed four main approaches that help illuminate and cultivate flow on the dance floor:
Social dance as Sport.
Social dance as Game.
Social dance as Conversation.
Social dance as Art.
Part 2 will address how social dance can be approached as a game. Please see also Parts 1, 3, and 4 for how to approach social dance as a sport, a conversation, and an art.
Social Dance as Game.
“We are all part of a universal game. Returning to our essence while living in the world is the object of the game.”
- Kenny Werner
As adults, we are accustomed to setting limits and following rules. We call it having a structure, while children like to call it a playing a game. Games are a large part of our society and culture, from sports and politics to business and the stock market. I will define a game as a set of rules that creates a mental and/or physical challenge and implies the progressive development of skills to push the limits of what can be accomplished within the set of rules. By this definition, games encompass not only traditional board games, mind games, and children’s games, but the realm of social dance and even life itself.
Improvisational social partner dance meets each of the four components of my definition of a game: 1) it is governed by a structure or set of rules, 2) it provides a mental and physical challenge, 3) it encourages and requires progressive development of skills, and 4) contains an element of risk that pushes the limits of what can be accomplished within the set of rules. These are not strict categories, as they often overlap and bleed into one another. However, they provide a framework for understanding social dance as a game and how engaging in this game can lead us to the experience of flow.
Many people are drawn to social versus competitive dance because they enjoy the freedom of expression it provides. However, this liberating feeling of spontaneous creation would not be possible without a structure. Social dance is based on the existence of rules, including the rhythmical structure of the music, the movement parameters of the dance, the unspoken rules that govern communication between leader and follower, and the spatial limitations on the dance floor when in proximity with other couples. Every dancer must begin with the basic rules and structure of the dance before they can progress to intermediate and advanced concepts. Even through the advanced level, however, there is a basic structure that must be maintained in order to make communication on the dance floor possible. This structure, instead of stifling the creative flow, actually provides greater opportunity for expression and creativity in the dance.
Stephen Nachmanovitch expressed this concept beautifully in his book, Free Play: “Structure ignites spontaneity,” he writes. “Limits yield intensity. When we play … by our self-chosen rules, we find that containment of strength amplifies strength. Commitment to a set of rules (a game) frees your play to attain a profundity and vigor otherwise impossible. Igor Stravinsky writes: ‘The more constraints one imposes, the more one frees one’s self of the chains that shackle the spirit . . . and the arbitrariness serves only to obtain precision of execution.’ Working within the limits of the medium forces us to change our own limits. Improvisation is not breaking with forms and limitations just to be ‘free,’ but using them as the very means of transcending ourselves. If form is mechanically applied, it may indeed result in work that is conventional, if not pedantic or stupid. But form used well can become the very vehicle of freedom, of discovering the creative surprises that liberate mind-at-play.”
This creativity is made possible in part by the constant variability of social dance. You can dance twice with the same partner to the same song on the same dance floor, but it will not be the same dance. This is because you and your partner will hear and interpret the same music in a different way every time. You and your partner will never be at the same mental and emotional place as you were before. And you and your partner will never relate to each other in the exact same way with each new dance. This is why social dancing never gets boring when approached in this manner. Mildred Portney Chase, in her book Just Being at the Piano, wrote, “Each time we play, we are new beings, and the performance that was fitting yesterday does not have the ring of truth today – even if we were able to identically duplicate it. Spontaneity in playing is all important; only a recording will play over and over again and sound exactly the same.”
In addition to the intangibles of the dance – connection between partners, musical interpretation, and individual mood and temperament – the physical variables are also constantly changing. The preparation and timing of a lead, the speed of rotation in a turn, and the placement of hands and feet in the dance come in endless variations, requiring the dancer to execute similar movements with minute adaptations in various situations. Greg Downey explained this concept in the context of capoeira, a Brazilian form of martial art and dance: “Because conditions change, accomplishing what appears to be a similar movement requires constant self-monitoring and ongoing readjustment rather than flawless repetition…Learning the aú [a cartwheel used in capoeira], then, actually requires being able to produce an infinite variety of variations, appropriate in different situations.” With so many variables, social dance provides an infinite supply of challenges and ways of navigating to the end result within the rules of the dance.
Although there are so many variable conditions – both tangible and intangible – that can keep the dancer engaged even at the beginning level, games beg the players to build upon the fundamentals to find increasingly complex ways to get to the endpoint. This necessitates a progressive development of skills. As dancers become comfortable executing basic movements in a variety of situations on a simpler plane – both physically and musically – they strive to build upon that knowledge and ability and develop more ways of expressing themselves within the rules of the dance. As they learn more skills, they can take on more challenges and delve deeper into the creative possibilities the dance allows.
This constant progression places the dancer in proximity to the intersection of skill and challenge that leads to flow. As I discussed in Flow Seekers: The Characteristics of Flow in Social Dance, a balance between skill and challenge is necessary in the pursuit of peak experiences on the dance floor. When skill outweighs challenge, boredom prevents true enjoyment and creativity in the dance. When challenges outweigh skills, the dancer feels overwhelmed by a variety of stimuli that they are not able to handle and respond to. However, when the learned skills rise to meet the challenges of the game, the dancer finds a feeling of transcendence.
It is important for dancers seeking this experience to remember that the concept of challenge is a function of perception. Every single aspect of the dance is a challenge objectively, but it is the subjective aspect of challenge – whether a particular skill is challenging to the unique individual dancer – that matters in the challenge-skills balance that we talk about in the context of flow. This means that challenges can be found at any level, from the basic to the advanced and beyond. But even more than that, it means that our mindset affects whether we find stimulation and challenge in the dance.
Remembering the importance of mindset and perception becomes valuable to the dancer when dancing with a partner who is either much less or much more experienced or skilled. In other words, when the dancer feels the challenge-skill balance being tipped too far to one side or the other, a change in perspective can help to avoid feeling overwhelmed or underwhelmed. When dancing with a partner who is much more skilled, trying to overcome all the challenges in the dance may be too much. Concentrating on one or two specific goals helps to stay focused as well as keep the challenges manageable and success attainable. Dancing with a partner who is much less skilled, on the other hand, may result in lack of interest. Again, focusing on a specific aspect of the dance that you can control – such as your quality of movement or musicality – provides an internal challenge where an external challenge may not be available. When approached in this light, a balance of challenge and skill in the dance is still possible.
The ultimate goal of taking on the challenges that the rules of dance present is not just to reach that balance but to push the limits of what is possible for our bodies and our minds within our dance form. Susan A. Jackson and Mihaly Csikzentmihalyi, in their study of flow, found that a stretching of the individual and their limits was required in order for the intersection of challenge and skill to bring about a peak experience. Part of the magic of flow is the libration of feeling as though one is transcending the laws of the dance even while obeying them, of expressing oneself so freely even when – or perhaps because – one is given limitations to move and think within.
In Effortless Mastery, Kenny Werner wrote, “Don’t forget: music is just something we made up. It doesn’t actually exist as anything but a game for us.” The same can be said about dance, the body and mind’s response to music. Because it has a set of rules and provides a mental and physical challenge, and because it encourages a progressive development of skill and reaches for greater possibility within the boundaries, dance fits into the category of game. Viewing dance as a game, rather than trivializing it, actually elevates it to a path of self-discovery, expression, creativity, and transcendence. With rules and challenges to provide focus for our imagination, social dance allows the individual and the couple to push the limits of their potential to reach a higher level. That higher level, or flow, is the true social dancer’s endgame.
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